tell me his gift certificate -- i mean his gift certificate, birth certificate. >> tom wants coupons. senator john ensign's pretzel logic. his infidelity was nowhere as bad as president clinton's and he shouldn't be impeached because -- >> i haven't done anything legally wrong. >> so senator vitter's infidelity with prostitutes? you're saying he should be impeached. uh-oh. all that and more on "countdown." >> this is a good deal. good evening from new york. in the classic peanuts lucy repeatedly convinced charlie brown she would allow him this time to kick the football she held out for him. time after time she pulled it away at the last possible second causing him to fly in the air and land flat on his back. the allegory of charlie brown and the football possibly reflected in our fifth story in the "countdown," in one breath the president taking direct aim at unnamed republicans, accusing

them of making a decision to deny him a victory on health care. pure politics. in the next breath the president adding that he wants to give the republicans negotiating health care in the senate a chance. the president addressing two very different audiences this afternoon fielding questions from supporters de dnc. hours earlier from callers to the radio show of a conservative talk show host accusing the opposition of trying to restrict it at all costs. >> i think early on a decision was made by the republican leadership that said, look, let's not give them a victory. maybe we can have a replay of 1993/'94 when clinton came in. he failed on health care then we won in the midterm elections and we got the majority. and i think there's some folks who were taking a page out of that playbook. >> at the dnc president obama ripping another page out of the republican playbook to defeat the health care plan. they're lying about what's in it. >> the truth is, there's no plan that has ever been considered

under health care reform in congress that covers illegal immigrants. nobody's proposed that. and yet a huge percentage believe that that's the case. nobody has proposed anything remotely close to a government takeover of health care. none of the plans that are out there. the most liberal progressive plans that have come forward and come out of committee, all of them presume that if you've got private health insurance, you can keep your health insurance. >> the president though not exactly clearing up the confusion about whether he would sign a bill without a public option in it. >> this is sort of like the belt and suspenders concept to keep up your pants. you know, the insurance reforms are the belt. the public option can be the suspenders. and what we're trying to just suggest to people is is that all these things are important. >> mr. obama having guaranteed one radio caller that he would get a health care reform bill

passed telling both him and the audience at the dnc he would prefer to do so with the support of the republicans. >> we don't know yet whether we've got any republican support. we've got three republicans who've been working very diligently. charles grassley, mike enzi and olympia snow. i give those three republicans a lot of credit because they're under enormous pressure not to engage in any kind of negotiations at all. and in the current political climate, they are showing, you know, some significant result. i don't know if in the end they can get there. >> especially every time senator grassley opens his mouth, the iowa republican now directly challenging the president to give up the public option as a condition of republican involvement. telling "the washington post" it was "pretty important if you're really interested in a bipartisan bill." but, wait, there's more. senator grassley pointing at town hall anger the reason why the scope needs to be scaled

back. "people are signaling that we ought to slow up and find out where we are and don't spend so much money and don't get us so far into debt." if you can consider health industry employees a sort of right-wing michele ya members but only foe they hate the president but yet you consider them regular people. a message today from senator ted kennedy it is time to start planning for a future without him in it. 15 months into his battle with brain cancer he is urging governor patrick of massachusetts and state legislators to change the state law that requires a senate seat which has been vacated to remain empty for five months before anything can be done to fill it. time now to turn to our own howard fineman of "newsweek" magazine and good evening, howard. >> hi, keith. >> by stating flat out he believed republicans made this decision to deny him a political victory on health care reform, to do to him what they did to president clinton in '94 especially when you consider his audience at the time, is that the most forceful, the most unequivocal we've heard the president yet in this debate?

>> well, he's being forceful in tactics. i think this is the most tactically forceful accusation he's made saying flat out he thinks maybe the republicans are out to do him in. but the problem is, he hasn't been forceful enough on the substance and clear enough because they haven't fully decided on exactly what's in the plan, so you've got suspenders and you've got a belt, but really obama standing there in his boxers. >> we'll continue the delightful imagery of the day that the president started. one thing of all things here that really confused me as a tactic, you've got one audience, this conservative radio show describes the republicans negotiating it as working constructively signal -- he said at least grassley and he mentioned a couple others particularly grassley as dedicated then goes to a roomful of democratic supporters and says we don't know yet whether we have any republican support. the three republicans are working diligently but concluded he didn't know if they could get there.

people who heard the first message aren't capable of getting the second message via some other means. did the president not know that? the message tailoring seems to be a thing that went out about 1906. >> well, i've come to the conclusion that he likes the idea of deliberate confusion for what he thinks is bargaining room, i guess. but as i've said before, right here, i don't think it works that way when you're dealing with the congress, you got to hit them over the hit with a 2x4 and be clear and specific and hasn't done that. i think the reason he has people inside the white house telling him he has to get the 60 votes in the senate. the whole business about using reconciliation and only 50 votes is problematic because you don't get all of what you want. don't have the power. it's confusing in the conference committee and jim messina under rahm emanuel is very close to max baucus who is the chief democratic negotiator in that

finance committee. i think mussina is telling the president hang in there, we might be able to get a bipartisan deal. ironically i think his boss emanuel is more skeptical. >> the other 2x4s in the room did the president indicate whether he would sign the bill without the public option and give a tell on that at all or do we have two answers? >> i think he gave a tell which is that he doesn't -- it's not a deal-breaker if it's not in there. if you listen carefully to what he said, he said -- we return to haberdashery, he said the reform of regulation increased regulation of the health care industry is the belt and the public option can be the suspenders. i take the can be, i'm trying to read some tea leaves here means that he doesn't -- you know it's not a deal-breaker. i've been told all along it isn't really a deal breaker for him. never has been. >> well, what is he going to do if he doesn't have any democratic pants?

>> quite serious, what happens if he alienates the people that elected him? >> that's in the process of happening if he plays it too cute here which i think he's doing. not quite sure what their strategy is. they emanate a sense of confusi confusion, other thing, keith, air time is valuable. people's attention span is not unlimited. every time you see the president on tv explaining what's not in the bill. >> right. >> not what is in the bill. >> yeah, the football season starts in two weeks. he'll lose 20% of them right there. howard fineman, thanks. for more we'll turn to john than alter. good evening. >> hi, keith. >> do we know what the president is doing? do you have a better idea than what you or howard does? >> i think he's undergoing message confusion to put it politely. to my mind, the problem is that he hasn't gotten to the core moral argument. he tried to do it when he was on that call with religious leaders

yesterday and tried to say it was a moral imperative but he hasn't closed that sale with the american people, in fact, hasn't even begun that sale and, instead everybody is talking about public options and costs and this and that and that focusing on the fact that this bill would end discrimination against sick people or people who have been sick, might be sick in the future and that it really is if you look at it in principle it's a combination of the social security act and the civil rights act. and it's just not being sold that way and so people aren't buying right now. >> yeah, even if you're president you can only eat one desert at a time. you have to pick which one you want and explain why you want that one desert. >> yeah, and you do have to, you know, k-i-s-s, keep it saming, stupid. look at the polling that we saw on msnbc earlier in the day of people's understanding or misunderstanding of the bill,

barack obama likes to treat people like adults but i think in this case maybe he should treat them more like children and simplify. >> how well has that worked for senator grassley to turn over to his part of this tells "the washington post" on thursday we ought to be po cussing on getting 80 votes, monday he says he has no intention for voting for any bill even if it's a negotiation he has achieved and attained. exactly how many chances does a republican like senator grassley get in this equation, never mind from his president, how many has he earned politically? >> i don't think any. i mean what's happening with him, he is worried about a republican primary in 2010. remember, the party in the 1988 iowa caucuss they voted for pat robertson, you know, that's how conservative iowa republicans are. so i think the odds of senator grassley supporting any bill are very small and the only reason that he is still in this process is that the chairman of this committee max baucus has a lot

of respect for him, worked closely together. it's important to both of them that they continue to have a good working relationship and that is the only thing that's keeping grassley in the equation. >> both grassley and bachus occasionally interface with the democrats. the story in "the wall street journal" today, do we buy into this? is this some sort of secondary set of negotiations or we're going -- there will be a simple let's increase the number of people in insurance bill and then the republicans might actually vote for so they don't look like they're trying to kill it then a separate bill. anything to this idea of splitting the difference? >> i think there is something to it but not necessarily for republican votes except for perhaps olympia snow or one or two others but for some democrats, let's remember, they have not closed the deal with democrats. that's what we keep -- have to remind ourselves of over and over again, and the public option is not a done deal with a lot of blue dog democrats. so i think what's going to

happen is to the left you'll see some votes in the house where they're given a chance to vote on single payer to vote on a public option and then after more liberal members have gotten that out of their system, then they'll get to, you know, deal-cutting time and you'll see perhaps this bifurcating of the bill so that the tougher ones go through -- under reconciliation and require only 51 votes for the tough ones and the ones that are easier they'll do one of their ordinary business requiring 60 votes. >> jonathan alter of "newsweek" and msnbc, thank you for coming in, jon. have a good night. >> you too. using phony fantastic but to the gullible easy to believe fears of death to influence politics. death panels. ever seen republicans do that before, right? when i reported that the bush administration was exploiting fear of death by terrorism for political purposes, i was called every name up to and including traitor. today mr. bush's first secretary of homeland security admits

ashcroft and rumsfeld pressured him to raise the threat level the day before the 2004 election. to have been right about this is about as unpleasant a feeling as those reporters were right that the world series was fixed that one year or bernie madoff was a ponsi artist. say it like, "mmmm, these healthy choice fresh mixers taste freshh!!" they taste fresh... wait. what are you doing? got it. you're secretly taping me? you were good too! but you know, it wasn't a secret to us, we knew... yes, but it was a secret to me. of course, otherwise i would be sitting like this and completely block his shot. so that's why i was like... didn't you notice this was weird? no. they taste fresh because you make them fresh. healthy choice fresh mixers. in the soup or pasta aisle. it's fidelity's guidance -- it shows you ways to spend in retirement that can help your money last, whatever your plans. like, if we wanted to travel? husband: or start a business? advisor: yep. wife: or take some classes? sure. or find the best cheeseburger?

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ma tip lating the fear of terrorism for political gain is

itself terrorism. and the hex suss of politics and terror as employed by the bush administration is now tonight confirmed. in our fourth story in the "countdown" a push to raise the terror threat level on the very eve of the presidential election of 2004. tom ridge, the former secretary of homeland security claims to have stopped that particular instance of it. john dean joins me in a moment. "countdown" has obtained an advance copy of his book "the test of our times." a key passage concerns the terms immediately preceding. friday, october 29, 2004, osama bin laden released a new videotape, you'll remember. mr. ridge did not think that warranted a change in the terror alert status. he writes "at this point there was nothing to indicate a speck threat and no reason to cause undue public alarm" but in a sub accident video conference call a vigorous some might say dramatic discussion ensued. attorney general john ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level supported by donald rumsfeld.

there was no support for that position within our department, none. i wondered is this about security or politics." post-election analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the president's approval rating in the days after the raising of the threat level." it prevailed because some white house staff agreed that raising the threat level could look politically motivate the and said "i believe it pulled the go i've-up advocates back from the brnik. but politics, fear, credibility and security, after that episode i knew i had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government." mr. ridge also claims that his department was justified in raising the terror threat level to orange in august of 2004 for the financial centers in new york, new jersey and washington. the warning had come just three days after the democratic national convention and it soon became evident that the evidence supporting that warning was about four years old and largely

out of date. never have i more wanted to be wrong about something but beginning in october 2005 we periodically ran a segment called "the next susz of politics and terror." as this brief introduction from the first time will suggest, sad to say we told you so. >> on may 10th of this year after his resignation former secretary of homeland security ridge looked back on the terror alert level changes that were issued on his watch. mr. ridge said "more often than not we were the least inclined to raise it. sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on alert. there were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said for that?" . the nexus of politics and terror. please judge for yourself. >> we hope to have the time to bring you the whole piece updated. for now let's bring in john dean, also author of "worse than

watergate" and "conservatives without conscience." good evening. >> good evening, keith. >> rate this in terms of our worst confirmations. the color coded bar chart, the whole thing was manipulated for political purposes at least some of the time. >> well, i'd say this is a modified limited hangout, keith. it's nolts a full confirmation. it's a hedge. tom ridge is a former u.s. attorney. he knows that he's talking about what could be criminal behavior. and he says at one point he wonders if this was -- if this was political for security so he backs off -- he doesn't tell us why he wondered it, what he thought rumsfeld said or ashcroft said so he strongly suggested they said something that made him think it was political. but he hasn't given us. he certainly has opened the door and raised the question. >> and you describe it just now in terms of criminal activity. who is potentially liable and is anybody in position to do anything about it at this late date. >> well, that's the problem. it is a late date. the statute of limitations has

run. as i say, if there was pressure, if you do manipulate an agency of government it is a criminal offense. this is one of the things that caught a lot of people in watergate. it's a conspiracy to defraud the government under title 18 usc 371, one as i say a lot of people learned painfully what that statute meant and if you try to have a department do something that's not supposed to do and doing it for political reasons, you can go to jail for that. so as i say, i think that -- i think ridge has hedged this. he's been careful. but he certainly suggested he might have gotten information that indicated this was the reason that he had concerns. >> as opportunistic as it might look, he did say these things, as i pointed out in the piece from 2005, right after the resignation, so there is a con tips not like he invented it or presented it out of whole cloth. the other side of the argument, though, john, that has been raised today that since the one example he points to from the days before the election in 2004

did not end in thele vegas of the terror level threat and diminishes in some way the fact of pressure that was applied. is there not an obvious fallacy in there? >> there is an obvious fallacy and that isn't the way the criminal law work, for example. if somebody actually conspired to do this an overt act was made, pressure was made and didn't get the pressure to succeed, it wouldn't any way diminish the crime. looking at in a broader context if this was the conduct and history reveals to me the conduct, these people got away with a crime. >> the secretary's reaction to this was he needed to leave government. he needed to resign but, of course he didn't do it in the days before the election and he did not neither did he resign immediately but was he not in a position perhaps to investigate this in some way, at least start to investigate it before somebody shut off his alarm clock? >> well, when listening to your piece i thought if he's trying in the book to make this a principled resignation, instead

of retroactively i don't think it's going to work at all. the question is why didn't he maybe investigate this further? indeed, was there more going on that made him wonder if this was political rather than national security. was he being told from the white house how to make national security decisions on homeland security? these are as i say and this is a very loaded little bit of commentary from this book. >> the message ultimately of the 2004 bush re-election campaign was vote for us or you might die. is anybody potentially going to be held account for that message having infected apparently official government actions as mr. ridge at least implies if not confirms? >> well, i think all of us -- those of us who followed this certainly believe this was the case, did manipulate it for political purpose, it did work. the question is i doubt if congress even on this issue will proceed any further even with this lead that ridge has given. if they won't, for example, look

at torture, why are they going to look at color-coded warnings as being -- which aren't even close to that problem, politically manipulated. >> yeah, since we got rid of it the problem couldn't come up again so we never have to prosecute it. the line of logic to follow now. >> we only had to elect bush to get rid of the color-coding system. >> john dean, conservatives without conscience, bick a book they all steam to apply to our topic tonight. thanks as always, john. >> thank you, keith. then there's the nexus of one baseball manager's head and one baseball coach's fist. a minor league management fight. and for the record it's a vacation, an industry website says it is a suspension for calling the president a racist. worst persons ahead on "countdown."

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obama's birth certificate. obama's gift certificate. whatever. first on this date in 1907 was born teddy bergman who acted under that name and alan reed. had memorable on-camera roles, sally tomato and played pancho via in the postman always rings twice. one job he took as a voice actor that made him immortal. here's your hint. yabba dabba doo. alan reed even dreamt up the signature expression of fred flintstone and also yelled it. let's play "oddball." >> ha. >> speaking of that, we begin in

manitoba, canada where 5,600 fans played up and a hockey fight broke out. the gold eyes and after red hawk pitcher threw a pitch, the umpire warned both to knock it out but come bate started jawing with the red hawks' third baseman. the manager got involved stepping in between the two and cooler heads prevailed. or not. we got a coach fight, people. both men traded blow, then tried to pull the other guy's sweater over their head. eventually their players pulled them apart. vate is jealous because sameonek was on a baseball card and he wasn't a magazine insert that will go out in september. to elect subscribers of "entertainment weekly." inside is there not only imagery of a soft drink but a two-inch tv screen on which you can watch pepsi commercials and clips from the cbs fall lineup. did i mention joel mchale has a

new show coming up on msnbc? only select subscribers in new york will get it due to the prohibitive cost of the stunt. by the way, this was shotted by "wired" magazine. watching a tv in a magazine shot by a magazine on your tv unless you just downloaded this. how did we all not see this coming. secret bush international assassination squad. it was outsourced to blackwater and senator ensign says his infidelity was not as big as bill clinton's. there's a lot of jokes to choose from there. these stories ahead. three best persons in the world. team warning, best oopsies. best tv one, sean hannity and stuart varney of the fox we're not doing any business channel, hannity said two bits of news came out. maximum bachus said social security could face default within two years. varney promptly agreed.

spencer baucus said it. spencer bachus, not democratic senator max baucus of montana. oh, and congressman bachus later admitted he made a mistake and meant to say deficit. social security could face a deficit within two years. first chance at default would be 2037 so fox got the name wrong and branch of government wrong and political party wrong and the quote and fact wrong. there's been no correction. dateline washington, number two best ex-politician oopsie. tom delay now affiliated with "dancing with the stars" on with chris, never mind for a moment he turned into one of those invasion of the body snatchers, conspiracy theory birther things listen for the blooper. >> will you do me a favor. ask him to show me his gift certificate -- i mean his gift certificate? his birth certificate. >> that's how obama can reform health care. send everybody a gift certificate. genius. genius, i tell you. and dateline la marque, texas,

number one best politician oopsie. senator kay bailey hutchison vowing to make education a cornerstone of her candidacy for governor which she announced at la marque high where she was carnation queen in 1961. i want to help to create an education system like i had." yeah, when senator hutchison attended it in la marque, texas, it was segregated. many surfaces that seem smooth and strong

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news came out acia director leon panetta rushed to notify congress after learning of the secret cia program to kill al qaeda leaders. we all knew there had to be something more than that. third story tonight, more. "the new york times" reports the cia actually outsourced parts of the job to blackwater, the right-wing mercenary firm that viewed its work there as obliterating the muslim faith from the earth and used call

signs from the christian crusades against muslims. blackwater's involvement was a major reason they became alarmed and called the emergency meeting. telling "the nation magazine," they will add blackwater to its ongoing probe. why would the cia outsource a highly sensitive function? from today's "washington post." it was initially managed by the counterterrorism center but its functions were partly transferred to blackwater when key officials retired from the cia and went to work for the private contractor." the post reporting black water got millions to train cia teams in simulated kidnappings but the plan was killed because it failed to get off the ground. blackwater founder erik prince got his first cia contract early in 2002 from alvin kron gard. krongard joined the advisory board in 2007. cofer black who ran the rendition program in which

blackwater was implicated joined it in 2005. blackwater's involvement ended years ago after cia officials questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program. with us once again on this story tonight, "the nation" magazine contribute jeremy skahill. >> nice to be here. >> explain why even the bush administration would think it was a bad idea to pay a private company for something so sensitive that congress couldn't be told? >> i don't think it's necessarily the case the bush administration thought it was a bad idea. the epicenter is dick cheney is alleged to have ordered the cia to conceal from the congress which has oversight authority the existence of an assassination plan. blackwater was on from day one of the war on terror as part of the war that bush labeled the crusade and worked overtly for the administration. we as of may of 2002 there were

boots on the ground in afghanistan. i'm not so sure the program has even ended to this day. blackwater continues to be paid by the united states government for work in both afghanistan and iraq. the issue here, keith, as representative dan cha cow ski is how far up the chain between erik prince and the administration go? she said to me clearly the bush administration trusted erik prince, the mercenary prince mother than the elected representatives of the congress who shared oversight. >> they shared more than details. they basically shared staffs. it was a sequential thing the way football coaches retire and work for television and cofer black, buzzi krongard, by the way, retiring to go to work at blackwater. explain the role of that evolving or the revolving door and the relative to the assassination ring, if you will. >> right, so shortly after 9/11, a.k. buzzi krongard meets with erik prince and authorize a $5 million black contract, covert

contract for blackwater to insert inside of afghanistan in kabul as well as in a town called skin where blackwater and the cia operated out of a mud fortress that they called the alamo. prince went over. he himself former navy s.e.a.l. went over with that initial deployment and of a week or so there according to a cia operative we talked to prince went to kabul to try to win more business for blackwater. that launched blackwater, keith as a mercenary operation. at the time that prince and krongard were crafting this relationship between the cia and blackwater, you had cofer black running the cia counterterrorism center saying the gloves had come off. before 9/11 and after 9/11 saying there were no limits on what operatives would be authorized to do in hunting down terrorists, so you have this history of blackwater from 2002 to the present where they worked overtly and co-vertly for the government and prince hires cofer black, buzzi krongard,

robert richard former director of the cia, eric prado to run his own private cia called total intelligence solutions which worked simultaneousously for the u.s. government and foreign governments. >> we already have blackwater employees who pleaded guilty to weapons smuggling including those armer piercing ammo devices that detonate in human flesh as you pointed out. there are affidavits from two of the vets of plaquewater claiming erik prince principally went into this because he wanted to kill muslim people. now we find out that they were hired as part of a secret international hit squad that congress was never supposed to know about. put it together in terms of a context for us. what more do we know now we didn't know before this came out. >> what you have here is a confirmation that blackwater not only was working in an overt capacity for the state department and for the department of defense where they were overtly killing people, shooting iraqis civilian, et cetera, all in a day's work, so to speak. but that they also were involved at the highest level of the

clandestine operation. blackwater we now know served as a buffer between the executive branch of the government and accountability. in other words, what you have is the white house being able to have ultimate plausible deniability because you don't have your own cia guys it but farmed it out to a private company. what it was effectively, keith, was a hit squad that responded to one branch of government, the executive branch at the expense of any other involvement of the other two. i would say it's unconstitutional. >> and was used in "catch." this is milo and the private army ended up taking over the world. >> the supremacist flies. >> jeremy scahill, it continues to unfold. thanks for illuminating it. john ensign says bill clinton was the worst ink

infidelita infidelitator. he turns out to be lying wildly. he just says in response, i didn't just pull that number out of thin air, now we know where you pulled it out. when rachel joins you why senator grassley is now using the manufactured astroturf movements at town halls to try to kill health care reform altogether. (woman) need to sell? re/max agents have the experience to get the job done. nobody sells more real estate than re/max. where do you want to be? with cialis for daily use... a clinically proven, low-dose tablet for erectile dysfunction you take every day

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glen beck suspended. karl rove apologized to. house whip roy blount to be voted out by a death panel. worst perpendiculars next on "countdown." have you smelled this chair? or these curtains? you've gotta wash this whole room! are you kidding? wash it?! let's wash it with febreze! whoa! [ sniffs ] hey mrs. weber. [ sniffs ] it smells nice in here. i like to keep things fresh. [ male announcer ] for all the things that you can't wash, wash it with febreze. febreze now comes in two fresh new scents -- downy april fresh and gain apple mango tango.

senator ensign explains his infidelity was not nearly as bad as president clinton but implies david vitter should be impeached. that's next and first time for "countdown"'s number two story. number one, glenn beck. his radio people deny he was suspended for cowing the president a racist or angering enough sponsors that 20 canceled commercials but sources tell tv newsers that "it was beck himself who was telling fox staffers last week that he was forced to take the week off." bronze to karl rove newly inducted into the scandinavian hall of fame, one of the most prominent norwegian statesmen in the united states emboldened enough to demand apologies from two newspapers because he has yet to be indicted in the political progression of don siegelman. perhaps judiciary democrats will at the cuss on more important issues and will admit their

mistakes. it would be the responsible thing to do. i'll apologize for them. i'm sorry you haven't been indicted yet, karl. runner-up senator john cornyn pumping paranoia that the white house needed to correct spurious tales. fishy way to collect e-mail addresses of its opponent, same collection is done at the website of senator john cornyn of texas. want to write a letter of it, oppose him. have to leave your e-mail address and real-life address, street address and everything, where you live. one thing left out of this equation, people, some who work for insurance companies are sending out these mass spam e-mails and earning recipients to send them on to everybody though know. you got your wish, shut up. but i wanted to know whether roy blount, the minority whip has told this one to the editorial boards of newspapers in springfield, m.o. and st. louis. i'm 59 in either canada or great

britain if i broke my hip i couldn't get it replaced. two-thirds of the hip replacements done by the national health service in great britain were done on people 65 or older. 63% of those done in the canadian system were done on people 65 or older. 1,20 in canada were on on people older than 85. confronted with the astonishing inaccuracy congressman blunt did not live up to his name. i didn't just pull that number out of thin air. it came from "some people who were supposed to be experts on canadian health care." you didn't just pull that number out of thin air. you pulled it out of your backside. this illustrates how much those public servants owned by the insurance and health care industry, how much they're expected to try to kill reform. they have not merely suspended the minimum standard but suspended even the pretense of getting away with the lie. like senator blunt who just lied to his constituents, lied the entire nation and media and lied sue pedestrianly in a way it

would be can caught within minutes. too bad we're worried about those lies of ensign and vitter. those might cost him office. blunt's lie is ee grejs enough in ray perfect world it would force him to resign. congressman roy blunt, liar. today's worst person in the world. taking its rightful place in a long line of amazing performance machines. this is the new e-coupe. this is mercedes-benz. how many washes did it take cheer brightclean to get this from dingy to bright? one might be surprised.

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after having an affair with his married staff who happened to be married to another staff who happened to be one of his close friends and driven to a fedex by a gang of religious conservatives and send an overnight note ending the affair and meeting her the next day, after the parents gave the mistress and husband $96,000 as a gift, nevada senator john

ensign will not resign. the man who voted for impeachment for the president declares his own actions unimpeachable because i haven't done anything legally wrong. number one story, senator john ensign his his extramarital affair isn't as bad because he didn't lie to the public about it. which might not be true and puts senator vitter in such a spot. does it not? >> in his first string of public appearances after admitting to an affair, he made an apology in the northern part of the state and isht view with the associated press attempting to explain why not all affairs are created equal. >> president clinton, first of all, he was president, stood right before the american people and lied to the american people. you know, you remember the famous day that he lined to the american people plus the fact that i thought he suborned perjury. >> joining me john ralston. thanks for some of your time tonight, sir. >> thanks for having me, keith. >> any logical reason why the senator should have invoked the former president? i mean did it not occur to him

anybody could then find his quote from 1998 which was think about it. he, meaning clinton, sent taxpayer-paid staff out to lie for him and that is a misuse of office. might those words come back to haunt the senator, do you think? >> well, of course, they should, keith. he's had all kind of things back then. he said during that rehabilitation tour, the de facto apology tour as you called it that he was different than bill clinton because he didn't do anything legally wrong as you said. that's not even true because that's not why he asked bill clinton to resign. he said bill clinton should resign before the starr report came out because he had lost credibility. you mentioned david vitter. he did no rush to judgment there, did he? he did a rush to judgment with larry craig because, you know, he solicited gay sex which is so offensive to ensign who believes in the sanctity of marriage and the rush to judgment with bill clinton. not john ensign shouldn't be

calling for vitter to be impeached. john ensign by his own standards he set in 1998, keith, should be calling for john ensign to resign. >> the other part of this, of course, the ensign's lawyer is maintaining that the senator's parents gave the hampton family $96,000 as a gift. you famously interviewed doug hampton, the husband of ensign's mistress and said it was sev severance compensation. when he says in the ap article one of the reasons he voted to impeach clrpts i thought it was a violation of a felony. couldn't he himself face a felony charge out of a finance law violation because of where the money came from. >> yes, indeed, the senate ethics committee and federal election commission may be investigating just that. it is a potential felony to not disclose more than $25,000 in severance. as you mentioned doug hampton said on my program that was certainly severance. his explanation through his

lawyer it's $96,000 as you derisively point out in gifts is just not credible because first of all they left out one of the kids, what's wrong with one of the kids? was he a badly behaving boy or something like that, keith. of course not. this just isn't credible and the timing. make sure people know when the gifts occurred. at the happened exactly at the same time that john ensign says doug hampton and cindy harsh n toning packing from d.c. and back to las vegas. some gift. >> we mention senator vitter and with this logic shouldn't he in fact be calling for vitter to either resign or to be removed forcibly because if it's a question of your affair being illegal or legal, your infi deal being legal or illegal, prostitution in washington is still ill lean even if you're a senator, right? >> indeed, it is, keith. at least technically. so i guess you would say that he should be calling for vitter to be out of office too. he's already defended vitter saying he wasn't convicted of

anything yet but, again, john ensign clearly has different standards for democrats or republicans who solicit gay sex than he does for himself or his pal david vitter. i just don't know why he would continue to talk about this and try to say that my affair was less bad than other people's and first of all, as i said, what he is saying is patently false about why he called for bill clinton to resign. he did not call for him to resign because he thought he committed a felony. he called for him to resign because he said "he had lost credibility" and, again, bill clinton, whatever you think of him did not go around pointing fingers at others. john ensign spent his career being up on that high horse. who is it that really lost credibility here, keith? >> when you try to keep it very complicated, nonsense cal line of defense together it does tend to fall apart in rather obvious places even if you don't see how obvious it is. jom ralston of "the las vegas sun." great work on the story and great thanks for your time. >> thanks, keith. that's "countdown" for this,

the 2 0shgs 303rd day since the president declared mission accomplished in iraq. as lou dobbins used to say "and so it goes." the president says he's dedicated but more evidence that chuck grassley's dedication to use astroturfing to kill all health care reform. with that here is rachel maddow. good evening. >> thank you tore that and thank you at home for staying with us for the next hour. dr. howard dean will be with us this hour. colonel lawrence wilkerson to colin powell will be joining us and karl rove is publicly demanding an apology from the media. we searched our darned liberal media souls and have come up with a response for him. that's all coming up but begin with the latest and perhaps most dramatic attempt yet to block health care reform from getting through the united states congress. here to help us understand that is someone who is not from congress, hi, sue. she is former all-star in the

wnba, sue wick, trying to help us out. >> you're the great rachel, thank you. >> thank you. all right. sue is here because to understand the latest and most over-the-top tactic for stopping health care reform i thought basketball could be useful so here's what's going on. it's supposed to take a simple majority to pass legislation in the senate. the majority rule, right? that's the rules. just like in basketball, the rule is that the hoop is ten feet high. so there's 100 senators, the rules are you need a1 votes, a majority to pass a bill. in basketball that's the equivalent of shooting in a regulation ten-foot hoop. if you can do it, if you can make the shots, sue, you've got the point. go for it. >> haven't shot in a while. but it's the same as it's always been. ooh. >> one more time. >> can i try again? >> hurry up. >> all right. >> okay. on the second. 50%. sinking a shot on a regulation fo